Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Movie Review: The Soloist

In case you were unaware, I'm not exactly a movie buff. Adam and I have a membership to Netflix but we don't move through our queue very quickly because I usually procrastinate about watching the movies. Yes, I procrastinate over doing something that most people find fun... odd. I think I just struggle with the idea of sitting down for 2 hours and not doing anything else, which is the only way I like to watch movies that I haven't seen. I'm also about as picky about movies as I am about food. I dislike watching anything scary, gory or overall extremely upsetting (unless it's based on reality and in that case, I try to stomach it, i.e. Flight 93).

*On an only semi-related note, the last movie I saw in the movie theaters was right after I moved to Chicago and was Mamma Mia, with my old roomie, Darin. The last movie that Adam saw in the theaters was the Dark Knight. Both of these were before we met each other. Somehow, we have unofficially started a "thing" where we're going to see how long we go before we see a movie in the theaters again. It's not to say that we didn't give it the old college try, we had several movie nights planned last year but when you don't have a car during the Chicago winter, it's hard to get motivated to get out and pay $15 a piece to see a movie and freeze your buns off. Hence, the Netflix account. I also like to think this has saved us hundreds of dollars.

But back to the real purpose of this post. Every now and then I see a movie that touches me. We've seen some good ones this year (A Mighty Heart, Slumdog Millionaire). On Monday night, we watched The Soloist. Adam put it on the queue after hearing about it from his brother. I had briefly read something about it, I feel like it was Oscar buzz? I hope so!

The Soloist features Robert Downey, Jr. (who has always been a fav of mine) as Steve Lopez, reporter for the LA Times. He writes a column called Points West and stumbles upon a homeless man playing (and playing well) a two-stringed violin and starts talking to him. During the conversation, he finds out that the man is named Nathaniel Ayers (played by Jaime Foxx) and that he attended Julliard. This piques Lopez' intrest and he begins writing stories about him. A woman donates a cello by sending it to Lopez' office (Ayers' original instrument but too valuable for him to live with on the streets) and so begins their unlikely friendship, despite Ayers' mental illness and Lopez' reluctance to commit to friends, family, anything.

Just to warn you, I had a couple of spotty tears during the flick but the best way I could describe my feelings and flood of tears at the end to Adam was, "my heart just hurts". It's a great movie and it deeply moved me but it, like most movies based on true stories, was realistic and sad. I would say, don't let the potential Kleenex raid deter you from seeing this movie. It's really good and has a great cast.

I believe that it is based on a book so if you aren't good at sitting through movies at home, like me, you can always go the reading route. Cheers and happy viewing!